Mack-Cali announced that the company is marketing a 1.2 million s/f office portfolio in New Jersey.
The portfolio has 26 buildings of office/flex space in Moorestown and Burlington Townships in New Jersey. The REIT has tapped HFF to market the properties, all of which will be sold free of any mortgage financing.
Two of the buildings are in Burlington Township while the other 24 are in Moorestown. Ninety-one percent of the total portfolio is leased, with tenants including health care services, pharmaceutical/clinical packaging and medical supplies.
The HFF investment sales team representing the seller is led by senior managing directors Jose Cruz and Doug Rodio, managing director Brett Segal and associate director Marc Duval.
The properties are situated within two of the area’s top business parks near the Pennsylvania/New Jersey border. This location has easy access to the area’s primary thoroughfares including Interstates 295, 195, 95 and 276, and Routes 130, 206, 70 and 38. Additionally, the portfolio is located within 20 miles of the Philadelphia International Airport and within 10 miles of the Philadelphia Regional Port.
In the past two years, Mack-Cali has been working on a strategic plan to focus aggressively on waterfront and transit-based office properties it owns in the Northeast, grow its luxury multi-family portfolio, focus on certain key markets while exiting others, and dramatically overhaul its key assets.
The company announced its comprehensive three-year strategic initiative entitled “20/15” that outlines the future of Mack Cali’s portfolio, in the fall of 2015.
“Our leadership team will continue to set ambitious yet achievable goals with a laser-like focus on driving our operating performance,” said Michael J. DeMarco, president of Mack-Cali Realty Corporation, in a press release last September.
Last August, the company announced it had sold $400 million of its portfolio, with contracts out for an additional $250 million of dispositions, $200 million of which it expected to close in the third quarter or early fourth quarter, with the remainder in early 2017.
The company expects to further reduce expenses in office operations and reduce credit costs through refinancing opportunities in 2016 and 2017. Leadership is targeting an increased leased percentage of the office portfolio to 90 percent by year-end 2016, and to 93 percent in 2017.
Part of Mack-Cali’s asset overhaul includes a $50 to $75 million renovation of the company’s Harborside waterfront complex in Jersey City. New additions will include high-end dining and shopping in an open layout with access to the Waterfront Esplanade.
